Some Summer
by Saelan
Summary: When the Potters go on vacation and leave James and Sirius with a "non-existent" relative, they do everything they can to survive.... Disclaimer: I don't own ANYTHING except the semi-true story it's based off of.... The Crud did exist at one point. 2007
1. Chapter The First

**Please keep in mind that this was written a LONG time ago; it was one of my first complete stories. If you find errors in spelling or grammar, please let me know. I'm going to keep this, and all of my other old stories, posted so I can track my crawling progress as a writer. Thank you for reading.**

"You're going WHERE?" was all James could say after his parents told him and Sirius, who was staying with them at the time, that they were going to Australia with some of their Muggle friends, the Mooremans, and couldn't take them. He was furious at them for making them stay with a non-magic relative that was so distant that their family ties stopped back in 1609. He stared unhappily out the window at the dead looking country scenery, seeing for the first time exactly how bad the drought really was.

"She's a nice, hardworking woman and you'll get along with her fine," was the last thing Mrs. Potter said as she left them standing by the old, rusty mailbox. As soon as they turned around, they doubted every word she had ever said about anything; the roof had large holes, there was no yard, but instead what appeared to be a pile of trash nearly ten feet tall that surrounded it on three sides, and the house looked like a wet cardboard box, leaning halfway toward the ground. "It's only for two weeks, after all." James and Sirius exchanged glances and went back to staring at the monstrosity in front of them.

"What the bloody hell happened here?" James asked, tilting his head to get a good look at the house, which would have looked respectable had it been when the Potters and Durges went their separate ways.

"It looks like there was either a tornado here, or Peter tried to help them fix the roof," Sirius said absentmindedly, looking at a bug that appeared to be carrying a mouse trap with several dead mice on it. "Yeah, she's a total slob. Look at that!" It stumbled and dropped the trap, which snapped on it and sprayed James' shoes with a thick green substance.

"Do you think she'll notice if we spend the two weeks out here in the bushes?" James looked thoughtful for a second, then looked back down at the bug juice that was now turning a neon orange. "That can't be good."

"I don't know about you, but I'd rather go explore the inside of the house and get real food instead of piles of dead rodents... You know I should put some of those in my trunk," Sirius replied, kicking the trap out of the way.

"Why? Is Peter rummaging through your stuff again?"

"Yeah, and he stole twenty Sickles and some odd change, the little thief. Maybe she'll have some spares in the kitchen or something," he growled, wondering what Pettigrew would do if he got one shut on his finger with a permanent sticking charm on it. James read his mind and beat him to the idea.

"Pomfrey'd just amputate it and grow him another one. What do you bet he'd do it again?" He looked genuinely amused at the idea of Peter taking too much of whatever he'd need and having to have Slughorn paged to get rid of the extra fifty fingers sticking out from his hands. He snorted and turned to look at the deserted street behind him. "We really don't have much of a choice, do we?"

"I don't think so. Shall we go in and get it over with before you end up doing something stupid?" Sirius asked, grinning. James rolled his eyes.

"When do I do anything stupid? What are you talking about?"

"Okay, you just suggested we spend two weeks living in those bushes, where we don't know what we'll find. SHE HAS BUGS AND MICE EVERYWHERE! If that's what she has in the house, what do you think she'll have in the bushes, Tarzan?" James imitated Lucius Malfoy down to the last twitch and pretended to be offended as they hiked across the yard to the door that they couldn't see over a smaller hill of unknown origin.

"It was just a thought. I told Remus not to let you read those idiotic Muggle books, told him you'd be really stupid about them later. Well, guess what, it's later and you're being stupid."

"But I LIKE annoying you, even if it means being an idiot. Remus is a lunatic, Peter's an imbecile, and you're something else entirely. Besides, the only part of those books I read is the back cover. I charmed a Quick Quotes Quill to do the rest. Don't tell him that, though. He'd kill me and stuff me in a hole in the ground because I took one for three months since I knew he'd need it, just to see what he'd do." Sirius smirked and James burst out laughing when he remembered Lily throwing it in the fire and Remus chasing both of them down into the Great Hall and halfway to the forest.

"What's so funny?"

"You are, Padfoot, because you're too dimwitted for your own good," James said, sliding all the way down the far side of the mound of mystery. Sirius simply jumped from the top and missed landing on him by only a few inches.

"Pity. That would have been a good piece of revenge for you letting Peter..." The front door swung open and an old woman with a walker and a cigarette in her mouth came toward them.

"What are you doing? Get in there before somebody sees you!" she screamed, nearly dropping the cigarette on her multishaded brown rabbit slippers that James thought must have been either white or pink at some point. "Go on, get in the house before I have to hit you a good one!" They both dodged the scarred metal walker just as it started to make its way off of the ground.

"That must be Estrella, then," he muttered as he walked through the door. The room beyond was in such disrepair and cluttered with junk that he couldn't even make out which room it was supposed to be.

"She looks like she could have been the reason your family split up back then," Sirius added, hearing something crunch under his shoe and finding a pile of chicken bones. James made a noise like he was about to gag and walked into the second room. He could tell this was the kitchen because of all of the rusty pans that littered the floor and counter and the layers of what appeared to be food stuck on the floor. A fluffy white cat stood on the counter, hissing and spitting at them and Sirius growled, making it run through a large hole in the wall that seemed to lead outside.

"Your first job is to clean up this mess in the kitchen, polish the table twice to get everything off of it, and paint the walls in the dining room over there before my niece and cousins get here next week; don't EVEN think that this is the end of your chores because you're sadly mistaken. Don't forget the dishes from last week over there in the corner by the television in that room. You," she said, pointing at James and at the wall and buckets of paint," don't take that wallpaper off, hear me? If I find one flake of wallpaper on my carpet, you'll be as dead as the mice in the cupboard!" With that, she turned and went to the back of the house, where they heard her snoring a few minutes later.

"Really pleasant, isn't she?" Sirius asked, looking at what might have been petrified food stuck to the ceiling in several spots.

"Yeah, she's the best unknown and possibly non-existent aunt ever."


	2. Chapter The Second

It was dark outside, but the work still wasn't finished. James looked at the clock to find it was almost eleven and shook his head. He and Sirius were working on "Aunt Estrella's" dilapidated house that would need more than a week to fix. They had barely made a scratch and it had been almost five hours. James was absolutely amazed that they had actually succeeded to this point, especially without magic. He glanced at the dull table that was still caked with who knew what after he'd spent three hours trying to clean it and hideous wall behind him, the bright purple covering the peeling yellow wallpaper he wasn't allowed to remove. 'How does she expect you to do that?' Sirius had asked, rolling his eyes after taking a look at the wall and pretending to fall over dead, nearly waking up Estrella. He laughed at the thought, then glanced at the wall and immediately stopped.

"It's hideous," he said as loud as he dared, watching the end of one paint roller hit the floor with a splash and roll toward the kitchen. It wasn't that he didn't know he'd get in trouble for it, he just flat out didn't care. The slimy trail it left on the faded orange carpet reminded him of the fire slugs they had been advised about in Herbology. At the moment, he'd give just about anything to have even Binns back, compared to the situation he was now in.

"Why did she do this to us?!?" Sirius groaned, climbing more than halfway into one of the cupboards near the floor, coming back out, then crawling into the next one.

"Well, at least you don't have to paint!" James answered, throwing the one and a half paint rollers into the bucket and splashing a puddle of purple all over the wall. He stood up and kicked the paint roller head at the far wall, which miraculously stuck and didn't move until several hours later. Sirius retreated from the cabinet, holding what appeared to be a sponge, grabbing a mouse and sending it on its way through the hole in the wall. He threw the sponge into the sink, plastic and all, and groaned again.

"You have no idea!" he replied. "Every single thing in the bloody kitchen! Crud..."

"What'd you do now?" James asked, peering into the sink and expecting to see something quite abnormal.

"I didn't do anything! I'm just saying, CRUD! That's what I call this special recipe of hers." He leaned against the wall and stared at the ceiling for a second, then looked at James. He had taken another look at what was in the extremely dirty water and had to hold his breath to keep from waking everything in the house up. He had a hard time believing it was, or had ever been, food. It was black, crusty, and stuck fast to the pan, not to mention giving off a putrid smell.

"That's... disgusting," James commented, choking back laughter.

"What's so funny?" Sirius asked, looking unhappily toward the mess that awaited. "I'll paint if you..."

"If I do that? I don't think so. I'm not as stupid as you think I am, Padfoot. Do it yourself." He snorted and went back to the pan, using half a bottle of dish soap on it, hoping it would take it off. "Did you do the rest of the dishes?"

"Yeah, all that I've found, anyway. I'm gonna kill that freak," he said simply, shaking his head. He began to search the drawers and came up with a steel butcher knife, then began to stab the thick crust without mercy.

"You better be careful or..." James began, but it was too late; the knife blade broke and remained stuck in the offensive substance. He started laughing as Sirius struggled with it and, after nearly two minutes, finally got it free.

"What now?" he asked, chucking both pieces of the knife back in the drawer.

"Dunno. It's a start, I guess." He turned away and went back to the soon-to-be purple room, staring at the strange sight of the sponge stuck to the wall.

"A start?!? Prongs, it... has... layers!!!" Sirius exclaimed. "I'm surprised it didn't get up and walk across the table while it was at it!" James started laughing so hard that he fell down, narrowly missing an unwanted encounter with the paint bucket.

"Use magic then," he told him, picking up a roller and starting on the wall again. He grinned at the thought of Peter doing such a thing, wondering what he'd really end up doing.

"I'm not getting expelled for trying to break the Curse of the Killer Crud!" he raged, growling like a mad dog at the would-be food on the pan.

"Whatever. Just trying to help."

"Fine. You go back to your ugly purple wall and I'll go back to..."

"What? Did it move or something?"

"Probably," Sirius said, running his hand through his hair and instantly regretting it. "Just one thing: it's not coming off!" James had to hold onto the nearest bookshelf to keep from falling down. How could it not come off? He'd been working on it for nearly an hour now and had used pretty much everything he could think of.

"It isn't? Just leave it then. What's she going to do, murder you?" An interesting thought occured to him, but he pushed it away, just like he would have done the pan of mystery substance if it decided to come and visit.

"Yeah, most likely. She's a psycho, Prongsie, in case you haven't noticed."

"Well, like you said, it's a special recipe."

"Yeah, whoever made it is too special for their own good. I should get the ingredients and feed some to the Slytherins..." Sirius looked thoughtful for a second.

"They'd know who did it. They always know."

"So? It'd be worth it, wouldn't it?" he asked. James turned and stared back at him, then began painting again. "Fine. I'll settle for Malfoy and Snivellus then."

"Not a bad idea... Maybe Remus can help a little. He's always complaining about how we never let him help, so there's his chance. However, I'm not asking her for anything."

"Right. Maybe we can get Peter to make it and clean it up, tell him it's really fun and easy. He'd believe it. We'll have Crabbe and Goyle test it to see if it works and, if it does, what it'll do."

"They'll never know what hit them!" James pictured the look on Snape's face when he started eating a pastry that had a note addressed to him from Lily Evans, apologizing for the Marauders' behavior. Then he saw the look on his face when he took a bite and found that it tasted like something rotten from the owlery.

"You know..." Sirius said, staring at the pan, still completely caked with the burnt concoction.

"What? What do I know?"

"Nothing, nothing at all. However, do you have that invention of yours with you?" James looked momentarily confused.

"What? The Blob?"

"Stop calling it that! It's the equivalent of corrosive acid. I'll do those two walls if you put some on the Crud. Deal?" Sirius grinned and looked like he had just realized it was Christmas.

"Make it two and a third and I'll do it."

"Done. You have to take it off, though, since you're the only one who knows how."

"Fine, but I get the floor tonight," James announced, remembering the lumpy, bug-filled mattress he had had an unpleasant encounter with earlier that evening.

"Have it. I'll sleep in the closet tonight." He remembered the many cockroaches and unidentified insects crawling around in it, over the old, stale clothes, under the table filled with termites, around the obstacle course of high heels and tennis shoes, through tunnels made inside disgusting moldy food, so disintegrated that it was impossible to give an expiration date or, sometimes, even a name.

"Good luck and have fun."

"Oh, I will. Trust me."

"Good. Don't forget to write from the mental hospital when you wake up twenty years from now complaining about invisible bugs crawling in your bed."

"I won't. Oh, and one more thing: if you do anything noticeable to the pan, sink, or any other thing, living, dead, or inanimate, in, on, or part of the kitchen other than the Crud, we'll be finding out how fast that thing of yours eats through skulls," Sirius threatened him. James smirked. "Yes, Prongs, that means the cat, too."

"You're no fun! I thought you hated that cat!"

"I do, but not enough to be skinned alive by that demon."

"Whatever. Do you think it can kill faster than the Crud?"

"Give some to Snape and we'll find out. It prob..." Sirius said, but stopped with what he hoped was a horrified look on his face.

"What?"

"It moved! The entire pan moved!" James turned white and looked like he was going to faint. Sirius turned and left the room, then picked up a paint roller, laughing at the look on James' face.


	3. Chapter The Third

It was past one o'clock in the morning when they finally went to bed, but neither of them slept. James wasn't used to sleeping on bare wood floor with nothing more than the bug filled blanket off of the bed and Sirius had actually stayed in the closet ten minutes, which was ten minutes longer than James had expected, then literally flew onto the bed. He had spent nearly an hour trying to get all of the bugs off of him, then sat there staring out the window for the rest of the night. The peace, however didn't last long.

"Wake up, you useless... Get out here and finish your work!" Estrella screamed, pounding viciously on the door and knocking dust down from the ceiling. Sirius groaned and tore his gaze from the house across the way, which happened to be about a mile away. James looked at his watch and grunted, rising stiffly from the floor.

"It's three thirty, do you know where your brain is?" he asked, not wanting to believe that they had only been given two hours to sleep. "Do you think it'd be worth using magic?" Sirius turned and shook his head, flicking a cockroach off of his shirt and making a face in disgust.

"Do you want to get the Ministry involved? All they'd do is come over here, see the mess, and get sick everywhere. Then Ms. Wonderful Aunt would make us clean it up. We're better off just waiting it out." James grabbed the flashlight he'd found in one of the drawers in the kitchen and shined it on his shoe, which now had a rather large hole in the toe.

"What kind of bug do you think that was?" he asked, seeing that it had also eaten his sock and had made a purple spot on his foot. He started laughing hysterically for seemingly no reason at all and Sirius stared at him.

"I haven't the foggiest about anything anymore. What's up with you?"

"Nothing, just the fact that..." Estrella had returned to the door and was now hitting it so hard that the lock was beginning to creak. Sirius grinned and pointed toward the far corner of the room, which the bed hid from sight. As soon as they got down on the floor, the door burst open and she barged in.

"Where are you, you buggers? It's time for you to get to work!" She started walking toward their side of the bed and they simply crawled under it, then came out the other side when she looked where they had been only seconds before. "Where'd you go?"

"Over here," James said, acting as if he had just woken up. She looked as if she had never been tricked like that and merely grumbled something that neither of them could understand.

"I couldn't care less about where you are, now get out there and get to work!" she screamed after she seemed to have nothing left to say to herself. They both got reluctantly off of the bed and returned to the living room.

"What now?" James asked sarcastically, getting a severe look of disapproval from Estrella.

"Clean the entire house. I'm going out and I'll be back at six thirty tonight; I expect everything done by the time I get back!" She turned and picked up an ugly hat with fruit and flowers all over it and stormed out the door.

"Shall we get to work?" Sirius asked, opening the nearest door and seeing something large moving inside that was hissing furiously. He slammed the door shut and turned to James who was still staring after her.

"Do you think it's worth using magic now?" he asked, grabbing a pile of black banana peels and heading toward the kitchen. Sirius pulled out the couch and the cat came flying out at him, claws outstretched. There was a loud sound and James turned to see a large hole in the wall and what appeared to be a dead cat lying on the floor. He peered through the wall to find Sirius doing the same, his expression somewhere between fear and hysterical laughter.

"It attacked me," he said, pointing to several large cuts on his arms and neck.

"You killed it," James replied, pointing to the cat, which still hadn't moved. They both shrugged and started snickering. "You murdered Auntie Strella's kitty cat!" It was a perfect imitation of Bellatrix's mocking, but Sirius didn't care.

"You're twelve years too old to be talking like that, Prongsie," he responded, remembering that James' thirteenth birthday would be in about a month and a half and his own about two months later. Remus was the oldest by about four months and they were all surprised that Peter was actually in their year because he was about a month younger than the cut off date; they had always said that there had been extra space the first year.

"Whatever. Here's something for you: you kill it, you throw it out. We'll bury it in the yard somewhere and tell her it ran away." James was examining a pile of dead mice that had turned black with age, then groaned when he realized what they were. "That's just disgusting."

"Fine, and I'll take care of the trash if you do all of the bathrooms, and I mean ALL of them; there are like five," Sirius said, grabbing a spatula and throwing the mice into a garbage bag.

"I'll do it if you take care of all of the food in the kitchen. Yes, Padfoot, that means the refrigerator too." He shrugged and nodded, pretending to throw a mouse at James, who flinched like he had just said the killing curse.

"The food doesn't bother me, but if I find anymore crud... I'm just going to leave it if that's what it is. Here's another catch: if I have to do ALL of the cupboards," Sirius said, pointing to all sixteen cabinets, " if I do all of those, you have to clean out the mice." James looked like he was going to die from some horrible disease.

"Do I have to?" he asked, a slight note of whimpering in his voice. Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Yes, James, you have to. That might work with Remus and Slughorn, but it doesn't work with me."

"You sound just like McGonagall," James muttered, grabbing a handful of trash and chucking it into the bag.

"Excuse me? What did you just say, Mr. I-Love-Evans-So-Much-That-I-Could-Die?" He grabbed a mouse and threw it at his head; it hit it's mark and James screamed like Halloween had come early. Sirius started laughing, imitating his reaction every time he could catch his breath. After a while, James joined in, but got revenge when he picked up the mouse and stuffed it in Sirius' mouth. He started choking and poured the last of the dish soap in after it.

"If I get rabies..." he growled, shoving James' head into the sack of trash.

"The next time you transform completely I'll make it so you can't become human again and I'll take you to the vet. If you throw another rodent or dead animal or any kind at me, they'll do more to you than give you vaccines..." James said, picking a pair of cockroaches out of his hair. Sirius snarled and turned back to the pile of trash on the couch.

"Well, if you anything of the sort to me, and I'll stick you in animal form and drop you off in the middle of the woods during hunting season."


	4. Chapter The Fourth

It took two hours to finish the dining room and kitchen and get a decent start on the living room. They worked in silence for a while, until James found a nest of rats behind the television and screamed for about thirty seconds.

"You really don't like those things, do you? No wonder you wouldn't go anywhere near Peter when he first pulled it off," Sirius commented somewhat stiffly, watching James back away like there was no tomorrow. He poured some of the acid James had invented in their last week at Hogwarts on the rats and they immediately began to smoke; one caught fire and the others tried to run, but only got a few steps before they keeled over dead. James stuck his tongue out and grabbed another chicken bone, throwing it in the bag like it too was a rat.

"I'm going to see if that old bat has one of those Muggle things that cleans the carpet," he declared, not realizing how stupid he sounded until it was too late. As soon as he turned, Sirius threw a bone at him and copied James' idiotic grin. "You're really asking for it."

"What am I asking for, exactly? You'll be asking for St. Mungo's when I'm done with you if you don't get your dirty, pathetic mind out of the gutter. Now go get the vacuum!"

"Oh, yeah. Is that what those things are called?" he asked, opening the same door Sirius had earlier and slamming it shut only seconds later. "I think I found it, but I found something else, too."

"Good for you. There's a broom over there you can hit it with. It think that's an acromantula in there, but what I don't understand is how it got in a Muggle's house."

"Who cares? If it bites me, I AM contacting the Ministry!"

"No duh, Prongs. Here's one thing you forgot: an acromantula can eat you in one sitting, so I would have to contact them in order to get you out of it, and I'm having second thoughts about doing ANYTHING like that for you because you're always threatening me. So enjoy your new temporary home and have fun trying to dodge the acid!" Sirius taunted, pretending to throw the burnt rat at James, who scowled in good humor and turned to the next door, nearly having to pry it off of the hinges because there were so many spider webs and other mysterious things that looked suspiciously like porcupine quills holding it in place. When he finally did manage to get it open, he decided that it was the entrance to the cellar. Against his better judgment of a good time, he shut the door quickly and vowed to drag Sirius down there later, more as a precaution than anything else.

"Have you found it yet?" he asked, and James walked around the corner to the next door and found that it was locked.

"No, but she seemed to think that there's something in this room worth hiding. That's probably where it is, she just doesn't want us to have an easy time cleaning this pile of garbage that she calls a house. I'll bet you a bag of Knuts that nobody else on this street knows that she lives here because of the army trench of trash her house is buried in. I wonder how long she's been living like this," James answered, deciding it best not to try Bombarda on the door and get himself expelled.

"Yeah, maybe. Still, however long this place has been like this has been too long!" Sirius replied, pulling a dead lizard out of the green brick fireplace that obviously wasn't supposed to be that color. He added it to the pile of miscellaneous objects in the bag and tied it shut, then threw it out a window he had opened a few hours earlier before they took their two hour break to try to get rid of the smell of the place. "Bloody pack rat, anyway. What would she want with rats, reptiles, and bugs, not to mention whatever that is in the closet?"

"I have no idea, but this place is still disgusting after all of this time. Okay, I'll admit that most of the trash is gone, but there are layers of mold, food, and everything else on the walls and the carpet's a goner, considering how much mystery concoction its met. For instance, that stain over there in that corner that's on the wall, ceiling, and floor looks like blood... Then Mum wonders why she's not married!" Sirius laughed at this discovery and had to admit that he was right; it did look like somebody (or something) had been murdered there.

"Hey, I was wondering, do you think we'd get away with leaving ickle Snapeykins out there in the mound of the unknown? He'd be gone for about a month while he tried to dig his way out and we'd put a memory charm on him as soon as he showed up, just erase enough to make him forget the incident and that he's not a three year old girl," Sirius suggested and the image of Snape doing a pirouette in a frilly, pink ballerina tutu appeared in both of their minds and stalled their work for a few minutes.

"We really should do something like that, you know? Next year when we go to Hogsmeade, let's get a love potion for him and put it in his food, then tell him Evans likes him. That'll avenge us for her turning us in to Morgan for trying to turn Filch's head into a mouse's and getting his stupid cat to chase him." James tried the next door and pulled out a mop and bucket, throwing them into the living room and nearly breaking the ancient television set. "I want to use the vack-um, so you do this." Sirius watched him dig around in the closet and, very surprisingly, come up with a new vacuum that was still in the box.

"No, Prongs, I'll do that because you're going to hurt yourself. Remember the last time you tried to use a Muggle appliance and I was stupid enough to let you do it?" he said as James started shredding the box like his life depended on it. "Maybe next time."

"Oh, come on! You're no fun!" James yelled, pretending to be mortally offended as the memory of him sticking his finger in the toaster about two hours ago and getting electrocuted ran through his mind. "I know not to mess with how it works now."

"So you do, but you'll probably just end up ripping up the carpet and destroying the house. How about you sweep and mop, then I'll show you how to use that thing." James looked confused and began searching the closet again.

"What's a sweep?"

"You really need to take Muggle Studies next year. Okay, you take a broom and..."

"You mean that they take perfectly good brooms and drag them on the floor?!?!" Sirius rolled his eyes and got up, grabbing the broom from James' hand and regretting not looking at the handle; something green and slimy was dripping down it and onto the floor. He looked into the closet and saw that there was a large hole in the ceiling, and through it dark gray clouds.

"This just keeps getting better and better. Do you want to get on the roof?" Sirius asked, wishing that he didn't have to offer such a thing to James Potter, the boy who thought that a Muggle broom could fly. "First you need to get some wood, preferably some that's cut and MEANT to be used in construction. I'll find the hammer and hopefully some nails."

"What? Nails are the sharp little things made of metal, right?" Sirius nodded glumly and started toward the tool shed in the far corner of the backyard while James went searching in the pile of trash closest to the front door. When he came back inside, James had a pile of thick wood that looked like it had been cut by somebody who didn't know how to use a saw.

"This'll work, right? The only wood I found out there was so rotten that it looked like the inside of an orange and smelled like Snape's hair."

"How would you know that? And that will hold as long as there aren't any huge holes and you attach it right. I'd go up there, but I have to see what's wrong with the plumbing system before the rain starts so the house doesn't end up flooded and I don't trust you to work on something that could mean we go surfing out the back door and into a swimming pool of rancid smelling... You understand, right?" Sirius doubted that James would be much help trying to tighten the drains and getting the four broken faucets to work. He already planned to have him clean out the drains if he had a chance, anyway.

"Why don't we just let the water come in here and clean the house for us? We wouldn't have to mop or mess up that perfectly good broom!"

"That wouldn't be a bad idea even if we knew she had flood insurance, she wasn't a psycho, and if she wasn't liable to take your family to court and take every cent you have for destroying her house. Oh, and another thing: that broom couldn't fly if it wanted to. It's just like yours except that it doesn't have any magical properties whatsoever. Now please don't take it up on the roof and try to make it fly like I know you want to." James grinned at this, considering the fact that he had actually planned to do something similar, except he wanted to do it from the top of the couch instead.

"Whatever, Mr. I-Know-Everything-About-Muggles!"

"I don't know everything about Muggles, but I know enough not to stick anything in something I've never seen before!" He handed James the hammer and a sandwich bag full of rusty nails and pointed to the door. "You take this thing and hit those into the wood after you put it on top of the house. Try not to hit anything else because you'll make another hole in the roof since it's probably rotten by now and you'll break your finger."

"Do you think this'll be enough wood?" James asked, walking outside and looking at the roof with a look of dull interest.

"Yeah, you're only covering the holes, not the entire roof. If it doesn't have shingles on it, then cover it because it's going to leak. You'd better hurry or you'll be having fun putting fans everywhere to dry the carpet!" He nodded and put the hammer and nails in his pocket, then started climbing up the vine trelis that was, of course, completely devoid of plants. When he got to the roof, Sirius threw the wood up to him and he started pounding the wood onto the roof, yelling three times before Sirius went back in the house five minutes later.

It took about an hour for James to finish patching the many holes in the termite infested roof and for Sirius to figure out what was wrong with the plumbing in all but one room and repair it. James came back in the house with his shirt soaked with rain and went straight to the kitchen to get the roll of cloth and tape from the first aid kit for his purple finger. It looked like a hurricane outside, with the trees in the backyard swaying viciously in the wind, barely visible through the mass of water and dirt being sprayed on the window of the door.

"That's going to be fun cleaning up," James muttered, opening the refrigerator only to be reminded that there was no food in it. He groaned and reached up into the newly mouse-free cupboard and grabbed a glass, only to find that Sirius hadn't gotten to the kitchen faucet yet. Dark brown water that looked like dirt but smelled otherwise poured into it and James just left it sitting in the sink with disgust. He went back to their bedroom and opened his suitcase, reluctantly taking out his bottle of water and draining the small amount left.

"Are you done yet?" Sirius asked, coming out of the room next to where James was, dripping from head to toe from his encounter with the broken toilet he had been trying to fix.

"Yeah, I think so. I don't see it raining in here, not yet anyway. It looks like somebody decided to make this little rut a swimming pool."

"Maybe, but I'm going to take a break from that mess in there and shovel a hole in the great wall of garbage so we aren't up to our necks in polluted water; if it doesn't have an exit then we'll be swimming with the fishes tonight."

"Do you need me to do anything right now?" James asked, falling over on the floor and acting like he was dead.

"Not really, but you can sweep if you want." He grunted at the thought of using a broom to clean the nasty floor and Sirius laughed. "There's a scrub brush in the kitchen you can use instead of the broom, but it's harder that way. Don't mop yet, though because I'll probably end up tracking in something unpleasant and you'll just have to do it again." James nodded and got to his feet, glancing at the mud covered window.

"I can't believe you're going out there."

"I have to," Sirius replied, opening the closet and pulling out the pair of boots that had the least number of cockroaches in them. "We're doing this after we tackle the floor." James started laughing at the expression, wondering how they would literally do it.

"You can, but I'll just watch you."

"Ha, ha. You're so hilarious. Do you want to go swimming with your little rodent friends out there?" He walked over to the laundry room across the hall and pulled out a rake, since that was all Estrella had. "I didn't think so, so you better shut it. When I go outside, lock the door or you'll have water all over the place. Yes, Prongs, you'll have to let me back in."

"Blah, blah, blah, I know the drill. Why would I let you run around in the rain like an idiot while I clean? How stupid do you think I am?" He unlocked the door and water immediately began leaking through.

"Just one more thing: stay out of the bathroom over there and don't mess with the kitchen. Oh, and don't touch the vacuum." With that Sirius threw open the door and ran outside, almost having to swim to get through the rising water. James locked the door and went over to the window they'd forgotten to close and shut it as fast as possible, watching him through the dirty glass.


	5. Chapter The Fifth

Sirius' plan of digging a hole for the water to drain through worked pretty well, but there was still a lot of standing water around the house that they didn't know how to get rid of, since the house was at the bottom of a steep hill and at the top of a gentle one. The water would rush in from the top, then barely trickle out the other side. The repairs to the roof held better than expected, since James had gone a little overboard with the nails and covered anything that he even suspected to be a hole. The plumbing problem was fixed within a half hour and they took a break for about fifteen minutes, eating a mystery canned good for lunch. It was only about nine o'clock, but they hadn't had anything to eat for about twenty-four hours. The cans said that whatever it was was still good for about another three years, but there were no labels to tell them what it was. Sirius had searched the cupboards and found a mechanical can opener and had spent about ten minutes teaching James how to use it, although it had instructions on the box.

"It's amazing how Muggles get along without magic, isn't it?" he had asked, watching the miraculous machine completely mutilate the can he tried to open. The food spilled all over the floor with a gelatin-like plop and Sirius shook his head at the mess he'd let him create.

"You're mopping," he said simply, reaching up into the cupboard and pulling down the last two cans of it. "I'll do this one and we'll take the other one to Remus to find out what it is. It's not like it's going anywhere, after all." James shrugged and watched it open the other can perfectly, not caring that he still had no clue how to do it.

"Okay. I was wondering what thing was. Where'd you learn this stuff, anyway?" He took one bite of the canned meal and simply held it for the rest of the time, having never had to eat that way before. Sirius, however, ignored the taste since he lived out of cans for most of the summer and nearly all of his life before Hogwarts.

"Mummy dearest decided she'd send me to visit the people on the other side of the complex at Grimmauld and I stayed there for most of a week. They were remodeling their house and thought it strange that an eight year old didn't know anything about practically anything, so they taught me how to use some of the contraptions. I just got lucky today with the cleaning stuff and repairing." James thought it strange that he pretty much refused to look at the food, and decided he'd do the same next time; after all, if you don't know what it is, you can't really judge it.

"Oh. Maybe I should take Muggle Studies next time," James said, looking at the dishwasher that seemed to be glaring back at him. The idea of having to do this job by himself absolutely terrified him, since he had no clue how to do anything concerning Muggles.

"You don't HAVE to, you know. Do you plan on living like this forever? They teach us magic for a reason, Prongs, and that's so we don't have to fill a bucket with water and scrub the floor ourselves; the spell will do it for you." Sirius put the can on top of the dining room table and got up; he decided that he shouldn't let James near anything electronic ever again and glanced at the mound of what appeared to be green solidified cranberry sauce on the floor. He walked over to one of the drawers and pulled out two scrub brushes and threw one at James, who didn't have the slightest clue what it was and dodged it. The brush hit the wall and bounced onto the table that was no longer covered with the strange, crusty stuff.

"What is that thing?" James asked, picking it up like he thought it would bite him.

"It's what we'll be using to get the layers of crud and everything else off of the floor," Sirius answered, returning from the living room with the bucket. James remembered the brown water and tried to warn him, but the faucet had been fixed and nearly clear water came out instead. "I don't advise you to drink that until I can find the filter I saw earlier." He nodded and walked over to the bucket, which was caked inside and out with dried dirt.

"Are we really going to use THAT? Won't it just make a bigger mess?" Sirius grinned and handed him a new bottle of dish soap.

"Yeah, we're going to use it, but only after you get done getting all of that off. I'm going to go get it off of the mop, which was nearly glued inside of there." He turned and left, leaving James with a bottle of liquid he had no experience with and a bucket full of mud.

It only took about five minutes to get both clean and to locate a bottle of bleach to remove the years of food and mud from the floor. It was still pouring outside when they started scrubbing the kitchen floor, and, since they had nothing better to do, they placed bets by means of housework on what color the tile under the mess would be. In the end, they were both right and the bet didn't really mean anything because the tile was both colors and looked better than they thought it would after being caked so long.

"After we finish I should still mop, just to get the residue off of the floor. It'll still be really nasty even after we get the majority off because the water's not the cleanest thing in the world," James commented, getting a chunk of what looked like petrified spaghetti off of the floor.

"Good idea. We'll have to change the water after every room, too, because they're all really bad, although this one was the worst. You'll have to wait until the floor's dry before you try to walk on it, or you'll be down faster than devil's snare at the beach."

"Yeah, I know. How are we going to get all of the little pieces of food the mop won't pick up?" James asked, starting toward the mess he'd made with the can opener, which was now caked to the floor as well.

"We'll just run the vacuum over it, meaning that you can try doing a room, but only if you don't do anything to it. It's not exactly a fun job, but if you want to do it, I won't stop you." Sirius put the brush down, having done his share of the kitchen, and went into the living room to start assembling the vacuum. The box was long gone, having been the victim of both James and the water that came in the front door, but all of the pieces of the vacuum had been moved to the couch. It only took a few minutes because it didn't require tools, but the instructions had been destroyed with the box, which made it more difficult. The kitchen was finished and the first bathroom was almost done by the time it was ready, but Sirius removed the power cord as a precaution; he didn't need the vacuum to be blown up while he was trying to finish scrubbing the tile.

"Is it done?" James asked, leaning against the wall, holding the bucket full of black water. He wiped his glasses on his now filthy shirt and managed to get about 90 of the dirt off of them.

"Yeah, but don't try using it yet because I have the part that'll keep it from eating the carpet," Sirius lied, knowing James would try to turn it on anyway, just to see what it'd do.

"What'd you do that for? It's not like I have TIME to go mess with it!" James said, grinning. "So, after we run that thing, what do we do?"

"Well, we have to see if she has a carpet cleaner, which I know you'd like beyond doubt, then do something about the stench of the furniture. After that, the only room we haven't done is ours, which we have to do from the ground up," Sirius explained, glancing at the clock. It was eleven twenty-five and they were about halfway done, which was good news to them. "You can try the vacuum on the empty bedroom, that way you can't run into anything. You get to do it last, that way if you break it (I'm not saying you will, but just in case) we won't be picking up everything ourselves."

"You're mean! You always think I'm going to break Muggle stuff!" James said, crossing his arms and looking just like a five year old about to have a temper tantrum.

"I have good reason, considering the fact that you don't have the slightest clue what you're doing."

"Fine, see if I care! How powerful is it, anyway? Do you think it'll pick everything up?" He looked down at the carpet, with the many different colored flakes speckling the it, which appeared to be a shade of an unknown color, somewhere between grey and brown. Sirius shrugged, picking up a bone they had missed earlier.

"We might have to go over it twice. I dunno. I'll finish scrubbing the floors if you go make sure we didn't miss anything like this ANYWHERE on the floor because the vacuum picks up almost anything, but if it sucks up a bone or something, it'll break and we'll be picking everything up by hand. Take my word that it's not the easiest job in the world."

"I can do that, if you give me a while," James said, getting up and pouring the bucket of water into the toilet and watching it disappear automatically. "Somebody must have been really bored to make that, huh?"

"I guess they were. It's going to take me a while to finish the floors, anyway, so if you get a chance can you get all of the rugs and stuff off of the floor? You have to shake everything off of them so that it'll get picked up. When I get done I'll put the part back on the vacuum and I'll show you how to use it," Sirius told him, refilling the bucket with water from the bath tub and adding the bleach again. "I'm going to be a while because I still have four more rooms to scrub."

"Okay, then. If I get everything off of the floor, do you want me to mop? There's another bucket in the closet and the mop's in the kitchen, so I can get that done while you start vacuuming; we'll get everything done faster if we're both working." James gave him a sarcastic salute and left the hallway, deciding that he'd check the carpet for potentially dangerous objects after getting everything off of the floor. He realized that they would have to move all of the furniture in order to take care of the bug problem and get the carpet to an actual level of clean.

"This is going to take a while," he said after checking all of the rooms and finding about half of a garbage bag full of chicken bones, long pieces of string, chunks of plastic, and other junk that could be a problem with a Muggle cleaning device. He grabbed the bucket and filled it with water, using dish soap from lack of anything better to use, then started dragging the mop across the floor, half excitedly, half bored out of his mind. "How can Muggles live without magic?"


	6. Chapter The Sixth

James finished all of the floors shortly after Sirius did and they sat on the floor in the living room as Sirius showed him how to use the vacuum. He had decided it best not to plug it in right away, simply because the first thing James tried to do was turn it on. He looked like he'd just been punched when the device didn't start and Sirius started laughing at the dumbfounded look on his face. He held up the cord and James started laughing, too, having thought that he'd already broken the vacuum.

"You should have seen your face when the thing didn't start; I wish I'd had a camera!" Sirius howled, moving the cord as he tried to grab it.

"Padfoot, what's a camera?" He knew it was a very stupid thing to ask, since the wizarding world had them too, but he couldn't pass up an opportunity to annoy him. He made one last attempt to grab the power cord, but missed and fell backwards instead. "Fine." He crossed his arms again and turned away.

"You know very well what a camera is and you're not getting this cord until I know if I can trust you to use this thing, considering the fact that I've only done it once before," Sirius said, trying to relocate the port for the cord.

"Yeah, maybe I do, but who cares? I can't believe that their pictures don't MOVE! And how can they stand having to do everything themselves?" James asked, examining the front of the vacuum. "Where does the dirt go?"

"It goes through the tubes from the bottom into that container thing in there. When it gets full, which I know it will at least once, you take it out and put in the garbage bag, then put the container back on the vacuum."

"Oh, so that's how it works. We're going to have to move the furniture because it's really disgusting under there, especially the bed in that room."

"Yeah, I know. After this I'm taking a break; I haven't had more than fifteen minutes to do anything since we started. Did you find a carpet cleaner?" James stopped looking at the vacuum and pointed toward the laundry room.

"There was this really huge thing in there that looks kind of like this and it had 'just add water and soap' written on it. Is that what you were looking for?" Sirius nodded and snapped the cord into place, then checked the rest of the machine to make sure James hadn't sabotaged it somehow.

"I'll have to look at it, but it sounds right. However, before we start this thing, we have to get whatever's in that closet out of the house, that way we can clean up after it if it makes a mess." He beckoned toward the door that they had both encountered that day where the monster that they thought was an acromantula lived.

"Alright. If you chase it out the front door, I'll clean up whatever it's done to the closet. Deal?"

"I guess, but if it tore out a piece of the wall or something, you're responsible for the damage." James agreed and stood by the front door, unlocking it and seeing that there was no water flooding into the house this time. Sirius went over to the door and grabbed the broom that had been long since abandoned, then threw open the door. The creature that came out with a little coaxing from the broom was nothing that they had expected: it was a hawk. It was very old and most of its feathers had fallen off in the closet, and it definitely wasn't in the best health of its life. Bird seed and mouse bones littered the floor of the closet, possibly the most disgusting part of the house. James stuffed his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing as the old bird waddled out of the closet and over to the couch, then fluttered and landed on the motionless ceiling fan, glaring down at both of them.

"Come on, you great chicken nugget! Get down from there and get out of the house! Go make yourself a nice little tunnel in the trench out there and don't come back!" Sirius yelled, hitting the bird several times over the head and nearly knocking it off of the fan. It finally flew into the window and knocked itself out. Sirius grabbed the mop from the hallway and used the broom with it like chop sticks to pick the bird up and throw it out the door. "Stupid giant chicken, anyway. Do you think it'll try to come back in here?"

"I dunno, but that was funnier than that time in Potions when Snape's cloak caught on fire, remember? Slughorn couldn't believe that Peter did that, and I don't blame him, honestly," James said, locking the door as fast as he could because the bird had regained consciousness and was soaring toward the door. After about five seconds, there was a loud thump as the hawk flew into the door. They both lost their minds after that, but the bird obviously didn't try it again; when James and Sirius regained their sanity, they couldn't help but wonder if it was still alive or not, then decided that James would look out the window to see after they finished cleaning.

"Well, now that that's straightened out, you get to go clean the closet while I sort out the carpet cleaner. After we finish that, we'll see about something to eat that isn't actually IN the can, which means we get to mess with that big white thing on the cabinet out there that has GE written big on it," Sirius told him, and he couldn't help but notice that he had to talk to James like a little kid in order for him to understand anything about Muggles. He turned and opened the closet door, taking a long, hard look at what he'd gotten himself into. He picked up the old high heels and took them into the bathroom, determined to get all of the bird feathers and everything else off of every item in the closet.

"We're going to have to run these clothes through that washing thing over there; that stupid bird really took its toll on everything in here," James yelled, taking a hand towel and beginning to scrub the shoes.

"I saw that one coming. This is going to be fun because I know just as much about it as you do. I think you put the soap in it, then press some of the buttons and when it gets done, you put the clothes in the other one and wait for them to dry. It's just an idea." Sirius was dragging the dinosaur carpet cleaner out of the closet in the laundry room, hoping for nothing more than a cooperative device. It was actually brand new with the original protective plastic on it, but it was such an old model that he began wondering if it was older than the house. He struggled with it for a while and gave it one last jerk, about to throw it back in the closet, and the locks on the wheels came off. "That's really smart. Whoever made that thing's not the brightest bulb in the chandelier." He drug it into the living room and went back to find that there were at least five bottles of the cleaning solution for it. James walked in with his arms full of the clothes from the hawk's home and threw them in the washer with a look of disgust and terror on his face.

"We might as well wash ours, too. I don't think she'll be doing them and we're going through all of this trouble for her, you know. Besides, no offense, but you smell like toilet."

"Ha, ha, Prongs. I don't see YOU doing the plumbing!"

"Yeah, because you told me to go climb on the roof!"

"Like the idiot you are! Who in their right mind would let you do something like that when you have no clue what you're doing?"

"They could be in their left mind."

"Oh, shut up." James jumped on top of the dryer and grabbed the soap, pouring the last handful of it in the washer and pushing the buttons that described the coats, dresses, and everything else that had been thrown in the load of clothes. Just because the suit cases smelled like something had long since died in them, James dumped all of their clothes in the machine, as well as their shoes, which didn't smell any better.

"You didn't put too much in there, did you?" Sirius asked, returning from the living room with the rugs, which they had decided deserved a good run as well.

"No, it's only a little more than halfway full and there was only a little bit of soap, so I don't think you'll have to worry about it." He looked down and saw water all over the floor and gave Sirius an apologetic grin.

"Oh, really. What's that, then?" he asked, looking at the growing puddle of water. He shut the machine off, but the water kept coming. "You know that metal thing in the kitchen drawer with the thing you twist? Can you go get that so I can tighten the water lines back here?" James ran off to get it, hoping that whatever was wrong with the machine wasn't his fault in any way. It only took about thirty seconds to fix the hole in the tube for the water using Spell-O-Tape that Sirius had found at the Potter's about two days before and to make sure that none of the links were loose. James restarted the machine and added the rugs so they could have everything done at once, then got a beach towel and started mopping up the water on the floor.

"I didn't do it this time," he said, picking the lint off of his clean shirt that the suitcase had produced. "I just hope that that's the last thing we'll have go wrong today."

"Yeah, and you need to get back to your closet so we can get this done. I'm going to see if the cleaner works and start getting the shoes out of the closet in our room. I'm not looking forward to cleaning out the food and bugs, though; that's just flat out sick!" Sirius commented, turning the corner as James got up from the floor with the soaked towel, which he immediately threw into the washer.

"Do you think we should run all of the clothes and towels? It's just nasty and we don't have any soap, but they're not caked or anything, hopefully. Maybe we should do the dishes, too," James said, walking back to the closet to see what he'd need to get it clean. "You know, it's just a bunch of feathers stuck to the carpet and... We can just run the carpet cleaner over it and it should take it out." Sirius peered into the closet and flinched.

"I don't think it'll be able to get all of that up, so you should try to scrub out as much as you can. That's worse than detention with Filch."

"What did I do to deserve this?!?!" James yelled, somewhat in humor, partially in truth.

"I dunno, but it must have been really bad. I'm going to see about the dish washer, maybe we can get it running while we work." He turned and left James with the closet where the carpet and walls seemed to be painted in three dimensional paint.

"This IS worse than detention with Filch," he muttered as he went to get the scrub brush. He picked up the bottle of bleach and looked at it for a second, then thought better of it. "I can't put acid on it or it'll eat the carpet, so I can't use the same thing as I did on the crud." He settled for filling the bucket with water and putting some hand soap in it and took it back to the closet reluctantly.


	7. Chapter The Seventh

It took James the good part of an hour to get the closet clean and by then Sirius had pretty much finished with the bug problem in their closet. The food, shoes, and bugs, both dead and alive, seemed like nothing more than a dream as Sirius looked into the closet after taking out all of the clothes. He went over to the window and saw that it was still raining, so he sat on the bed for a second, and only a second. The washer buzzed and he groaned as he got up to put the clothes in the dryer.

"What am I, a maid or something?" He put them on what seemed to be the only setting ever used since the buttons were black with dirt and put the first half of the pile of towels and miscellaneous items in. It was actually quite a bit, but the washer was huge and could hold almost twice as much as the dryer, so he only put what he knew the other machine could handle into it. James was leaning against the wall and panting when he left the room.

"I was thinking... We should run the stuff on the beds, too. Who knows how long that stuff's been on there, anyway," he said, kicking the door shut. "Did you get the other one done?"

"Just finished it. You know, I'm not sure how you get rid of whatever those things are in the mattress, but I think I have a good idea. Do you remember that Super Dungbomb Remus gave you for Christmas that only affected the person whose name you said? If we tell it we want to kill the bugs, do you think it'll work? If nothing else it'll make them run for dear life and we can use one of those cleaning things I got from that shop in Diagon Alley to clean the dead bugs out of it. It's not a bad bed if you take out the bugs, you know." James agreed and they did just that. After they activated the bomb and stuck it under the sheets to keep it in place, they moved the bed out of the way and cleaned under it, which was over 95 trash. Sirius looked at the clock and it was a quarter after one, which confirmed his belief that they had made good time.

"It's been almost twelve hours," James said, stretching and heading out to the kitchen, where he pulled the water filter out of a cupboard and attached it to the faucet, taking his time and triple checking the instructions. It worked pretty well, but it tasted a little strange. It took him a while to figure out that he'd forgotten to put the filter in and he was somewhere between a laugh and a gag. He filled his water bottle and sat on the couch, which smelled strongly of cat, waiting for whatever would happen next.

"It feels like twelve centuries," Sirius replied, collapsing next to the vacuum. "Do you want to get this over with?"

"We might as well. If we get this done early we can mess around until she gets back. So we just do those things and finish the clothes and dishes, then we're done?" James asked, crawling off of the couch and onto the floor.

"I think so, less than that if one of the machines won't work. The dishes should be done anytime now, so I'll put those away and start the last two loads if you'll take care of the laundry; there's only one more of those, anyway. After I get this group of dishes put away, I'll start the vacuum and you'll have to move the furniture." He fell over and just lay there as the dish washer started beeping like a bomb. "Why us?"

"The world may never know, but I'm going to get the stuff out of the dryer before it shrinks. Good luck to you!" James got up and removed the clothes from the dryer, then moved the others as necessary, folding the original clothes as best as he could. Sirius finished the dishes first and started the vacuum, which made James jump about a foot off of the ground. He saw this and pretended to be trying to run him over, getting nothing more of a reaction than a McGonagall-like glare.

"What was that for? You have absolutely no sense of humor, ickle Prongs! You better run, the evil Muggle machine's going to get you!" Sirius laughed, turning back to the living room. James picked up a pair of Estrella's underwear and threw it at his head. "That's disgusting, you demented little freak!" He tossed the wad of worn lace back at him and continued his job, which he was now regretting.

"I told you you were asking for it and you didn't listen, so I granted your request and gave you what you deserved!" he yelled over the roaring device he was tempted to permanently silence; he'd never thought that a mere Muggle invention could make so much noise! James began wishing to get back to his house where everything was cleaned by house elves and magic.

"I don't remember asking to be stuck with a perverted anti-intelligent and anti-Muggle freak whose mind lives in the sewer!"

"Well, would you rather be stuck with all of that, or with the mutants at Grimmauld? I can tell Mum to leave you there next summer and you'll get what you want."

"Don't EVEN get me started on THEM! Do you want to mess with this thing later or not? You seemed completely willing to drag it up the wall and do the ceiling earlier, but I'll gladly let your twisted, minuscule mind rest in peace with the knowledge that the job's already done," Sirius said, the vacuum sucking up a loose piece of carpet. He turned off the machine and started digging it back out of the many brushes on the bottom. "Bloody piece of trash, anyway. How can you live in a place like this?"

"Why don't you tell me. What are the chances of somebody with no hygiene having practically every kind of cleaning device you can imagine?" James asked, slamming the dryer shut behind the final load of laundry. "Where'd you think she went, anyway?" Sirius shrugged, throwing the strip of carpet aside and turning the vacuum back on. James covered his ears, realizing instantly that it did no good.

"You better get used to the noise because this is a new model, but the cleaner's about a century old. It's a freaking dinosaur machine!" James twitched at the thought of anything being louder than this contraption.

"You're absolutely kidding me." Sirius grinned and started toward the final room, theirs, where James had to move the bed and frame three times in order to finish.

"Do you think the bomb idea worked?" Sirius asked, peering at the mattress and not seeing any bugs. "I found a scorpion on it earlier; how you get a desert pest in the middle of England is just strange. Your guess is as good as mine as to why she had it here."

"She probably kept it as a pet. She had a bird of prey in her closet, for Merlin's sake!" James replied, dragging the vacuum unenthusiastically since he hadn't been able to see how it worked: Sirius had finished the house before he had had a chance to bug him about it. He decided he would knock over the plant later that day and insist on cleaning up the mess before he would have a chance to say otherwise. He stared at the giant vacuum-like contraption in the corner and couldn't help but wonder if it would actually work. He glanced down at the one in his hand and back at the cleaner and saw that it was similar to the difference between a spider and a full grown acromantula. "That's the carpet cleaner?"

"Yeah," Sirius answered glumly, taking the vacuum from him before he could get any ideas. "We get to drag that around and fill it with soap and water to clean this disaster of a house. You can do it if you want, but I'm going to follow you the entire time to make sure you don't blow it up."

"I won't blow it up, Padfoot. Does it blow bubbles or something?" James asked stupidly, reminding Sirius of Crabbe or Goyle all of a sudden. He remembered seeing one of the Muggle lawnmowers for little kids, the toy ones that blew bubbles and imagined James asking his parents for one that Christmas, then him pushing it around the Great Hall laughing like a maniac who had taken a poison of some sort.

"Somehow I don't believe that," he said, trying to keep him from noticing that he had said something extremely dimwitted. "You're thinking of those things for three year old Muggles that look like the things that cut the grass. Those blow bubbles, but this just makes the carpet wet."

"If it just makes it wet, then why did I have to repair the roof?" Sirius was running out of ideas of how to explain how to use the machine and what it did, considering the fact that he had actually never used one.

"James, it CLEANS the carpet with soap and water and it doesn't dry it, so it stays wet."

"It doesn't dry it? What a piece of junk! Is it broken or something?" He rolled his eyes at the look on James' face, confusion and frustration at the fact that he would spend all day walking on wet carpet when it was dried immediately after at his house.

"No, it isn't broken, but it is a piece of junk, I'll agree with you there. The only reason it doesn't stay wet at your house is because it's dried magically, but we can't use magic here." He unlocked the water chamber and carried it out to the kitchen sink, filling it as fast as he could in order to get back to watch James around the machine. He threw in half of a bottle of the nearly solid soap and handed him a fork to try to loosen it up, receiving a bent fork and nothing else.

"We have to clean with a chunk of that blue stuff in there? Will it work? Where's the soap?"

"That IS the soap, and it should work."

"Can't you put it in that white box out there in the kitchen and melt it?"

"Maybe, but I'm not going to try it!" Sirius made a mental not to put a do not touch sign outside the kitchen and try to find a leash to put on him.

"Why not? It might work and then we don't have to worry about the machine getting clogged up!" James seemed to think his plan was the best thing since sliced bread and was disappointed when he was told to read the label on the soap bottle. "It says here to let it sit if it's hard. How creative."

"Okay, here's a little thing for you to remember about Muggles and their world: if you get creative, you break something!" James took a second to think about this and shrugged.

"If you break something, can't you just fix it?" Sirius couldn't help but think this was a little simple minded, but he did seem to grasp the concept of not using magic for the most part.

"It's harder for Muggles to fix stuff because they can't use magic AT ALL. They have to do everything themselves, just like cleaning. They have to manually run the vacuum and pick up trash and all that wonderful stuff. Muggles don't have house elves." He replaced the water chamber and started to look for the power switch, then realizing that it needed to be plugged in. James took the cord and tried to put it into a telephone outlet, then saw what he was doing and struggled for a second with a power outlet, trying to figure out which way to put it in.

"That's got to get very old," he said simply, looking dully back at the plug. "Do they have to do that every time?"

"Yeah, as far as I know. If the cord's too short they have to put it in a different one that'll let it reach. That would get really old... How could Peter live like that for eleven years?" Sirius asked, checking to make sure that the clump of soap was completely dissolved before he turned the machine on.

"I don't know, but remind me to get him something good for Christmas this year. Is that thing ready yet?"

"I think so, but you should let me do the first room to make sure nothing's wrong with it. I know you'd rather I have my hand blown off that you would yours."

"That's not the reason; I know you like these Muggle things!"

"First, that didn't sound right. At all. Second, you can do it if you're willing to keep your mouth shut when it explodes and blows you to pieces, along with the house," Sirius added, giving him a severe look.

"Fine, but I'd like to let you know that you look like Filch when you do that." James grinned and started reading the instructions, pausing every few seconds to wonder what something was. "What's the 'Spin Brush 2000'?"

"That's what the Muggle company calls this pile of junk that we have to clean the carpet with. Any more questions?"

"Not yet; I'm not good at being a Muggle, I'll admit that right now. I mean, you have to give these people credit for being as determined as they are to make a decent world for themselves."

"I'll second that motion: you sound just like Peter in Potions every time you ask what something is or does," Sirius commented, flicking a piece of lint off of the top of the ancient carpet cleaner.

"Oh, shut it," he replied, sticking his tongue out.

"Where's that fork?"


	8. Chapter The Eighth

They took about fifteen minutes to decipher the instructions on the side of the carpet cleaner, which even James thought was sad. He turned it on and screamed at the awful screeching sound that came out, which resolved the question of why it had been sitting in the closet for twenty years. The first thing he did was run over the strip of loose carpet and have to pull it out, making a harder time of it after refusing to turn the machine off. He immediately hated the soggy wet carpet trail that it left and wanted nothing more than permission to cast a drying spell on it. Sirius shoved the furniture out of the way and seemed to be having a good time watching James push the fifty pound cleaner around the house, where its wheels kept getting stuck in the carpet.

"What did I get myself into this time?" he asked, having to do everything but tackle it to get it around the corner. It was obvious that Sirius couldn't hear him since he couldn't even hear himself, but that turned out to be a problem when the cord was pulled out of the wall and broke an old plate on the dresser in Estrella's room.

"Don't you just hate not having house elves to do this for you?" Sirius asked, grabbing the broom from the closet and receiving a killer look from James.

"You know it, but it's kind of interesting to see how Muggles have to live. However, it would much more interesting from afar, as in Muggle Studies at Hogwarts." Sirius agreed and decided to change the filthy water in the chamber. The trail from the living room was probably the most notable thing about the house, since it was a pristine white streak through dark brown carpet. James followed him out and tried to slip a handful of soap into the microwave, but was caught by Sirius at the last second.

"If you try that again, you'll be finding yourself in that big white box down there. That's called the oven and it can become 500 degrees Fahrenheit in about ten minutes. Do you want a sun tan?" he asked sarcastically.

"Since when did you learn Fahrenheit?" James asked tauntingly. "Did Remus give you another book I should know about?"

"No, that's what it says up there by those buttons to turn it on. Honestly, Prongs, learn how to read! And don't get any ideas or you'll have a butcher knife sticking out of your head." He started back to the far bedroom, the second to last room they had to clean. "I'm so glad this is almost over... I'd die soon if it wasn't."

"Actually, there's another door over there that leads to the cellar. We could do that room, if you want." Sirius snorted in disgust and started laughing, seeing what James was talking about.

"That's not the cellar, that's one of the spare bedrooms. There's no way I'm going in there; it's filthy and there's a corpse in the closet."

"What?!?! She killed somebody?!?!" James asked, sounding quite alarmed. Sirius started laughing, but felt sorry for him since he believed the stupid story.

"No, she didn't; I was only kidding. It's a giant picture of a mining cavern in an old coat closet that I cleaned out earlier. Sorry, but there's really nowhere for you to get in trouble on this vacation."

"You call this a vacation?"

"That had to have been the most challenging thing I've had to do since I started at Hogwarts," Sirius groaned from the couch while James flipped through the channels on the television set that only showed black and white.

"This is boring. I thought the that thing was going to be kind of cool to watch, but who wants to watch a talking horse, no unicorn, or a big ugly bird that can talk?" James asked, searching for the power button. He hit it, but the television stayed on. "Hey, I thought this thing was supposed to work!"

"Maybe it's dead," Sirius answered, watching him hit it against the arm of the chair he was sitting in with increasing fury.

"How can an inanimate object be dead?" he asked as he chucked the remote at Sirius. "I think it's broken."

"You think everything in the Muggle world is broken, so why should I believe you this time?"

"You're so funny, did you know that? What's that door thing on the back?" Sirius turned it over and started trying to pry the little plastic tab off, but it didn't move. He started trying to pull it off with his teeth and James held out his hand. "Now I understand why you're a dog; you try to chew on everything. Let me try it before you break your teeth or get some kind of disease. After all, we have no idea what she did to that thing." He dropped the remote like it had just bitten him and stared at it on the floor.

"You do have a sick little mind. Where'd you get that idea from?" Sirius asked as James picked it up and wiped it on his shirt.

"I didn't mean it THAT way, I'm just saying, she had a cat and a hawk, possibly a scorpion, so why would anybody with a single brain cell put it in their mouth?"

"Well, your single lonely brain cell told me to get the door thing off, and I tried to get it off. Did you get that, or is the recording device not working at the moment?" he teased. James couldn't get it off either, so he just pitched it across the room at the wall; it came open and the batteries flew in seperate directions.

"What were those? Did she have bugs in there?" Sirius smirked and went to retrieve them, having to pull out two chairs to get at one.

"Those weren't bugs, Prongs. I don't remember what they're called, but Muggles use them in all kinds of stuff. You can buy them practically everywhere and when they run out you just throw them away. It's amazing what these people can think of..." He threw one at James who examined it like it was a particularly strange looking insect of some kind.

"I think I saw some of these in the kitchen last night. I was going to ask you what they were, but you were too busy with your crud to notice anything else," he said, returning the battery. "So they just throw those out? Where do they go?"

"I guess they go where the rest of the trash does, I think it's called a garbage dump or something like that," Sirius told him, adding the dead batteries to the last open trash bag.

"I'm going to go see if I can find them, since it'll be more interesting than watching that pile of crud on that stand," James declared, pointing at the television.

"Wait, we've been watching the crud for an hour? I thought you got rid of it last night!" he said, getting a light glare from James.

"You should be a comedian."

"Really?"

"No, not really." He started digging in the drawer and came up with a handful of batteries of every size. "Whoa, look at these! This one's about the size of the Snitch!"

"You've never seen one of those before? Even though you've never been in a Muggle house before, Peter brought about twenty of those at the beginning of our first year. How couldn't you have seen any? They were EVERYWHERE!!!" Sirius said, grabbing the back of the remote and returning to the couch.

"I don't remember seeing any, but we were too busy trying to figure out what was up with Remus at the very beginning, so I don't remember much about that year. Anyway, which kind do we use?" He started sorting through the pile of batteries, looking at each one curiously, trying to figure out what the difference was. "These ones expired five years ago and this one's leaking something... What is it?"

"Don't touch it, you idiot! Haven't you learned not to touch something you aren't sure about? It's common sense!" Sirius grabbed the old batteries and the one dripping on the chair.

"Fine, I won't. What was that, though?" James asked, picking up another battery.

"That was acid and you aren't supposed to touch it."

"Alright then, I won't do it again. What kind of stuff runs on these things, other than that controller thing?"

"That clock runs on them, and that thing with the buttons you dragged out of the closet earlier, and a lot of other things I don't know about. Have you figured out which ones it'll take yet?" Sirius asked, trying to read the small engraved print in the fading light. It was six thirty now and Estrella still wasn't back, but neither of them cared. They'd been running around like dying hinkypunks all day and were tired of watching the clock make its slow daily round, so they simply ignored it.

"These ones kind of look like the ones out of the controller. What do you think?" James asked, handing over a battery.

"I have no idea. I can't see anything over here anymore. Where'd the lamp go?"

"I'll get it. I was wondering how you use this thing earlier and... Crud, it's unplugged. I HATE THOSE TIHNGS!"

"Calm down, it's just a hole in the wall you put a metal thing in."

"I know what it is, but I just don't like messing with it because it won't go in!" He stuck the plug in the wall, but nothing happened. "No, I don't think it's broken. Not yet, anyway. Does it have a switch on it because I don't see one." He reached to pick it up and the lamp turned on. He jumped and almost dropped it on the floor. "See? I told you they had magic!"

"I don't know how it works, or what it is, actually, but I can tell you right now that it's not magic because if it was, all you'd have to do is say a specific word and it'd work."

"Well, maybe you can!"

"Prongs, it's not a magic lamp. Why don't you see if you can  
find out which kind of those things will work in the remote." James kept hitting the lamp and turning it on and off until he finally got bored about five minutes later.

"These Muggles, huh? Where's the controller thing?" Sirius threw it to him and got up to put the unreasonably huge batteries back in the drawer. "Wait, I want one of those."

"Why in the world would you want one of these things when it'll just burn a hole in whatever you put it in in a year?" Sirius asked, astounded that any wizard would want such a useless object.

"I dunno, I just want one. I'll put a charm on it at Hogwarts when we go back that'll keep it from leaking everywhere. I think those two will work, but I don't know how to put them in," James answered, grabbing the biggest battery and stuffing it in his pocket.

"Whatever, you great pack rat. Why don't you try reading the instructions on the remote?" he replied, tossing the handful of acidic metal bombs back in the drawer like they were about to explode.

"Oh, I thought somebody had drawn something on there. That's kind of weird how they did that..."

"You're so easily entertained," Sirius said, going into their room and returning with a pair of chocolate frogs he'd bought on the Hogwarts Express at the end of the past year. "How could anybody draw on that thing?" James shrugged and went back to staring at the minute words on the plastic and nearly loosing the frog in the process.

"If you put these in like this... Wait, the ones it says to have have three A's on them, and these have two; they're too big, anyway. I'm going to go look for the right ones. Don't worry, I don't want to keep any more of them, so you won't have these things all over the place in the dormitory."

"Yeah, I better not see more than that one because I know for a fact that all of your little souvenirs end up in my trunk, which had better stop soon or I'll be having a junk sale on the grounds the first day back."

"Okay, okay, I'll dig my stuff out. You're not getting anywhere NEAR this thing, though."

"Like I'd want it, anyway. I can't believe how much junk you accumulate over the years..."

"Yeah, like you."

"Oh, shut it. Go stuff yourself with flobberworms, Prongs."


	9. Chapter The Ninth

Estrella still hadn't appeared by the following morning and they began to wonder where she'd gone. Neither of them really cared and were actually quite happy to be rid of the rude old lady, but hoped that they wouldn't be blamed for her disappearance. The house was completely clean, or as much of it as they could do, and looked like a house now, although the yard looked like something else entirely. The huge mounds of trash had become watered down and bits and pieces of everything you could think of were floating around like boats in the middle of a tempest. The rain hadn't stopped pouring for nearly twenty-four hours and it had begun to flood, although most of the water ran down the hill.

"If this doesn't stop, this house'll be floating down the hill like the rest of the trash!" James commented, digging in the cupboard to try to find something edible. "Well, there's corn, carrots that don't have an expiration date, or another can of mystery something. What do you want?" Sirius cocked his head and made a face, then went back to their room.

"None of the above," he said, holding a bag of Every Flavor Beans. "I can't believe I forgot about these since I packed them THREE DAYS AGO!" He picked out a blue one after deciding to avoid any and all black, brown, and green beans until there was nothing left; sharing a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans was like playing chess, you had to consider your moves carefully. If you spent the beginning stealing all of the beans you knew didn't taste disgusting, you could spend the end of the game watching your opponent swallow ear wax and vomit flavored sweets, which is hilarious.

"I'm surprised you even know what your name is after you forget that you brought actual food to a place where everything is canned and expired. How intelligent you are." James looked hard at a dark green bean and thought it was the lime flavor that had been advertised, then became disappointed when he found it was grass. The rules to the game, especially when there was no other considerable food, was that you had to eat it, no matter what kind it was.

"If you say so, I guess. Do you want a rotten egg?" Sirius asked, offering him a multi shaded yellow bean after pressing the power button on the remote and finding that it still didn't work. James shook his head and took the remote, wondering what could have gone wrong.

"They were the right kind and they weren't past the date written on the side, so what did I mess up?" He pried open the back and took out the batteries, then peered inside the remote as if expecting to see the problem.

"Let me see one," Sirius said, grimacing from a sardine bean. "See that little bar thing on there? All you have to do is press those little circles and it'll show you if they're still good or if they're dead."

"Does it open it? I thought you said there was acid in there! Why would I try to open something that can eat my hand?" James asked, looking at him like he'd suddenly started foaming at the mouth.

"It won't open it, it'll just show you how much longer it'll be good on that line. It's kind of cool, actually." James followed the instructions on the side of the battery and soon found that both were completely drained.

"That's stupid. Why would anybody keep trash like that?" He wasn't surprised to find that the huge D battery that he'd taken the night before was also dead, but was grateful to not have to worry about it leaking before he got back to Hogwarts where he could use magic.

"Why would anybody let a giant bird live in their coat closet?" Sirius asked, confiscating the two batteries before he could save them from the trash. "She's a mental case who needs to go back to bedlam."

"That's very true. Can we just use those buttons down there on that thing to control it, or do we need this?" he asked, holding up the remote. Sirius shrugged and he crawled over to the television, flipping channels every few seconds. "I guess we don't need this." He chucked it back onto the chair and messed around with the buttons until he opened the menu, which was in German, and decided it best not to do anything to it.

"Do you think we'll be spending the rest of the two weeks by ourselves?" Sirius asked, packing away the beans that they'd both lost interest in.

"I dunno, but I don't really care, either. Whenever she decides to come back the house'll be done and she can't say a thing. What's that?" James had followed him into the bedroom and had started looking through the pile of miscellaneous stuff in the closet. He pulled out what appeared to be a Christmas present that had never been unwrapped and started shredding the paper; it was a brand new CD player that had been purchased only the year before.

"I don't think she'll be using it any time soon, so why don't you open it and find out?" He tore open the box and pulled out the machine, carefully looking at all of the strange symbols on it.

"What's that arrow mean? Are there any instructions?" He turned back to the box and stared at the minuscule writing then reached inside it and pulled out another power cord. "I despise these things. Hey, this one has three metal parts! I've never seen one of these before!" He put one end in the back of the stereo and the other into the wall, but had missed the part on the box about the power button on the back and stared at it for several minutes before realizing that it wouldn't work.

"It says something here about batteries... I think that's what those things you like are called, like the one in your pocket. What kind do you need?" James flipped the stereo over and opened a compartment.

"I think they're the ones with three A's on them. You need four to make it work. I wonder what's wrong with the plug." He stood up and went back to the kitchen to look for some of the batteries that he'd been laughing at the night before. He grabbed four that weren't completely empty and went back, shoving them into the strange device as fast as possible; a little red light came on, but nothing else happened.

"Maybe there's a switch or something you need to hit to make it do something. It says that it'll play compact discs and radio, but I have no idea what either of those things are." Sirius turned the box over and handed it to James, who simply put it aside and started pressing every button he could find. It took him a while to find the power switch and he jumped when he did, but he admitted that it had been worth the trouble.

"It plays music, I think. And it doesn't need one of those stupid plug things," he said, pressing a button and making it louder and another that changed the channel to something that sounded like French. "Do you think they have the Weird Sisters?"

"I highly doubt it, since everything on here's made for Muggles. They'd have to be really dull to put wizard music on a Muggle music channel." James pretended not to hear him and changed the channel again, getting a rock station and deciding that it would do. He went back to the pile of wrapped gifts in the closet and came back with what turned out to be a Lego set and a remote control car, which came with batteries. Sirius sat on the bed and watched him make a complete fool of himself, running the car into the pile of plastic pieces and getting a yellow head stuck in one of the wheel wells, then pulling it out and making it run into the bed.

"These car things are weird. Muggles can drive these?"

"They don't drive THESE, this is just a model of one."

"Oh, I was wondering how they got in there... I'm not so bright when it comes to Muggles, I'll admit that. Can this thing fly?" James picked up the box and quickly lost interest in the barely readable print, then turned to the closet again. "What are you supposed to do with those things?"

"I think you put them together and they building something, but you're too hyper to look at the instructions, so the world may never know." Sirius pointed to the pile of plastic on the floor and James groaned and put all of them back in the box, throwing it back in the closet and making some of the pieces fly everywhere.

"You're just like my Mum," he mumbled, starting to rip open the next package. "You're a hybrid of her and Filch. Eh... What did I just say?" He hit himself in the head and Sirius rolled off of the bed from laughing.

"So Mummy likes ickle Filch, does she?" he taunted, wondering what their kids would look like. James made a face and waved it away, looking disgusted and highly amused at the thought.

"She'd kill both of us if she heard that," he said, putting the Barbie doll to the side and wondering if they could use it to perform voodoo on Snape. "You know, if we dyed the hair black and melted the nose, this would like just like..."

"Don't even think about it; we're going to be on his case before he even gets on the train, and besides, I'm not taking THAT thing to Hogwarts if my life depends on it, simple as that," Sirius replied, cutting him off before James could let his idea develop and talk him into it.

"I'll carry it," James protested, kicking the pink box across the room and receiving a blow to the head with it.

"Talk about hard headed! You killed Snapey!" James grinned, looking evil and ready to torment any Slytherin who came his way.

"YOU could beat me any day of the week there, Padfoot, considering that last year Peter threw a rock at your head and it shattered on impact."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot. You're the one whose head's as big as the Great Hall, aren't you? I'm starting to think that Quidditch wasn't such a good idea for you."

"Well, you either because yours has swelled considerably since you started, too."

"But yours doesn't look like a head anymore." Sirius crossed his arms triumphantly at the confused look on James' face as he opened a book of fairy tales in ancient Greek. "Does that mean that you give up?"

"Never, I just found something more interesting than you."

"Talk about an insult! I'm so boring that I didn't use a permanent sticking charm on a Dung Bomb and throw it on Snape's head while you sat around and played chess with Pettigrew all day."

"That was pretty funny. He stayed in the Hospital Wing all day because they had to cut a chunk off his hair off and Pomfrey couldn't find a spell to regrow it. And for your information, I hid the black king and a white knight in the bottom of Snape's trunk where he'll never be able to find it; I told Remus not to get him another set and he's too cheap to do it himself, so our problem of having to play chess with Wormtail is solved." James imitated Sirius, who threw a spinach bean at him and stuck out his tongue.

"I was wondering where he went. Moony didn't believe me when I told him I'd actually done it and you don't see Snape admitting something like that."

"What do you care? I don't see you thanking me for taking those stupid pieces of junk and tormenting Snape with them!"

"Why should I? I TOLD you to do it after I made the entire set follow him around for three days!"

"You did that? I thought it was Malfoy since he was always laughing about it."

"Yeah, I did it. You simply don't give me enough credit," Sirius said, looking out the window after somebody walked past. "Do you think that's her? I can't see anything through this bloody rain."

"It's probably her. Where'd she go for all of that time?" James asked, climbing onto the bed and realizing that he should put everything back in the closet.

"Were you concerned or something?" Sirius teased, tossing a booger flavored bean at him. There was the sound of somebody unlocking the door and throwing it open like they were afraid for their lives. "Who do you think that is? Estrella couldn't move that fast if there was a dragon after her."

"Well, remember how we underestimated Umbridge? That almost cost us a good one." James turned off the radio and picked it up like it was a long lost pet, listening to try to figure out who had come into the house. "Hello?"

"James, we have to get out of here, now!" came Mrs. Potter's voice from outside the door. "They're coming."


	10. Chapter The Tenth

James and Sirius grabbed their stuff and quickly left the house, wondering what could have gone so wrong that the Potters were back from their vacation twelve days early and who was coming. James shielded the radio from the rain with his suitcase and became drenched because of it. They ran to the invisible car-like machine they had ridden in to get to Estrella Durge's dilapidated house.

"Who's coming, Mum?" James asked when he shut the door and put his new found possession aside. "Where'd Estrella go?" Mrs. Potter looked terrified as she signaled her husband to go before the on coming Muggle car ran into them.

"The Death Eaters are coming. The Order heard about it through the spies at the Ministry and we were notified immediately. There were about thirty arrests today, spies telling on spies and landing each other and themselves in Azkaban. Estrella was caught in the crossfire of a duel and was killed instantly yesterday morning on her way to the store we're guessing and there was supposed to be a raid of her house today." She spoke in a fast and worried manner, reminding Sirius of Kreacher when he caught him trying to steal his wand.

"What do they want with her?" Sirius asked, remembering the hawk soaring out the door and the piles of garbage everywhere before they started cleaning.

"They think she's of wizarding blood," Mr. Potter said suddenly, taking a sharp right turn as a group of menacing looking people in cloaks appeared though the thick downpour. "They think there might be something worthwhile there for them to take." He glanced at the rear view mirror and made another sharp turn so that they would be out of the Death Eaters' sight.

"If we hadn't found out, you two would be at that house right now and they would kill you just because they don't want any witnesses." James' mother turned her attention to the buildings on either side of the car, obviously trying to hide something.

"But we aren't at the house and they won't kill us," James said quietly, turning to look behind them and seeing nothing through the mud and water.

"Maybe not, but these are dark times."

"Can the Muggles see the dirt and stuff on the car, or is that invisible, too?" Sirius asked, suddenly worrying about what would happen if they were seen.

"We're not sure, but the Ministry has given us permission to drive in the rain at this time, so they'll sort it out later if necessary," Mr. Potter explained, pressing a button on the steering wheel and making the car Apparate back to the Potter's house.

"Uh, Dad, why didn't you do that back at the other house?" James asked, curious as to why they had had to run from the group of murderers when they could have just appeared where they wouldn't easily be found.

"The first thing wrong with that solution is that they could easily trace the spell and follow us. The other two things that would complicate the situation is that there might have been Muggles watching and to see an invisible car is one thing, but seeing it disappear is another, that and you have to be going at least fifty in order to make it work. I know, we've been working on the bugs non-stop, but we're not getting very far with it, seeing as it's a stubborn and advanced machine," he answered as they got out of the car and ran for the door because it was hailing in that area of the country.

"I hate storm season," Mrs. Potter screamed as she slipped on a chunk of ice and nearly fell back down the driveway. "All it ever does is make everybody miserable."

"We can add to that," Sirius said quietly so that only James could hear and he nodded, tightening his death grip on the radio.

It was a long and boring day, with James trying to replace the guts of the radio to make it pick up signals for both wizard and Muggle music, succeeding eventually and dancing like an idiot for about an hour. Sirius finished the History of Magic essays he'd been putting off all summer and watched him with disbelief, wondering what would have happened if Estrella hadn't been killed, or even better, if they hadn't been sent to her house to begin with.

"How long do you think it'll take them to realize that she has nothing that they want?" James asked, reluctantly shutting off the strange looking machine and slumping onto the bed. Sirius threw the last of his books back in the trunk and locked it, not quite knowing why he did so, and went back to the desk he'd been sitting at most of the afternoon.

"I don't know, but I'll bet you that they'll be there all day before they find out that she's a Muggle," he said, seeing the quill he'd forgotten and groaning at the thought of opening the broken lock on his trunk again.

"Probably. What do you bet that they take that doll thing in the pink box?" James replied, staring at a dark spot on the wall. He thought of Voldemort holding the hideous neon box, then screaming at the Death Eaters, demanding to know what it is and after receiving no answer, throwing it up in the air and blowing it to shreds; the head would still be smiling no matter what he did to it, so it would no nothing short of drive him crazy. The thought was both ridiculous and scary, especially the idea of anybody being stupid enough to bring Voldemort a Barbie doll.

"Well, what now?"

"I haven't the slightest clue."

"This has been a fun vacation, hasn't it?"

"Yeah, undoubtedly."

"Some summer..."


End file.
